Last night I was surprised to see a ute in the parking area of a nearby nature reserve where I had been going to stargaze. I had a headlight with red night-vision bulb on, and as I set up my scope on a picnic table there I heard a rustling in the bush and saw a pair of red eyes coming towards me. It turned out to be a medium sized black dog, fortunately it didn't hassle me.
A couple minutes later the dog's (and utes) owner came out of the bush. The first thing he says to me is 'are you a copper'? That made me a bit uneasy. Then he says "What's that?". I had no idea what he was talking about.
Then he shines his torch in my face and walks up to me. I protested loudly, and told him he was blinding me; didn't matter. He comes up a metre away or so, still with the light in my face.
This bloke was 35-40 yrs old, rather scruffy looking, and I'm almost 70 so I wasn't about to confront him physically. Fortunately he backed off after a short time, saying he was just trying to figure out what the strange red light was.
He went back to his ute but didn't leave right away. I could hear him rummaging around for 10 minutes or so before I packed up and left.
He obviously wasn't fishing and I doubt he was out for a nature walk, and from his demeanor had the feeling he was doing something less than legal (a marijauna patch?).
Certainly made me uncomfortable and I won't be going back there.